


i say breathe, stay with me

by runthemredlightsbabe



Series: pieces [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Language of Flowers, Little bit of body horror, M/M, it's getting serious now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:42:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10059725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runthemredlightsbabe/pseuds/runthemredlightsbabe
Summary: It’s vivid in that moment, the desperate need, the urge, the uncontrollable want. It would knock Akaashi to his knees if he hadn’t been leaning against the counter. His breath stumbles out of his chest, and the realization hits him because he is falling all over himself for a boy he met two weeks ago, and there are bruises under his skin like skeletons and there are things that he has done that he won’t think about and his body doesn’t belong to him anymore than he wants it to, and maybe in a different life, he would be the captain of a volleyball team and have no idea what it felt like to bend his spine so far back that it turned to agony, or how to press down on his own throat so that he’d never remember a thing. Maybe there’s a different life where he and Bokuto had a chance, where Oikawa fell in love with Iwaizumi like he should and Kageyama didn’t sleep with the all lights on.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who has been reading this crazy series. I can not express how grateful I am. You have all been wonderfully kind and incredible to me, and I could not ask for a better group of readers. Each and every one of you is amazing and beautiful. This story has been a long time in the making, and I am so incredibly relieved and assured that so many of you have given it your stamp of approval. 
> 
> !!Please be aware that this chapter discusses lots of serious stuff, especially non-con/dubious consent and definitely under-aged prostitution. There are also mentions of self-harm and eating disorders. Our boy's not in a very good place. please keep yourselves safe.!!
> 
> Title credit to "Bad Habit" by The Kooks

The December that Akaashi turned thirteen, he was offered 2,500 yen in exchange for a blowjob.

Akaashi was sitting in the back of an unnamed, stained club, tucked away in an unnamed, stained booth. Oikawa had brought him, told him to sit, stay, be good, while he delivered the ten packets of white powder tucked in the pocket of his thigh.

Being the delivery boy did not pay very well. It was dangerous, dirty work, and even if Oikawa was as good as it got, charming and lovely in all the right places, there were about fifty people above him with their boots on his fingers. His cut paid the rent, kept the police off of their asses, but left little to spare.

2,500 yen sounded like a lot to Akaashi.

“To you?” He asked, and his voice didn’t crack.

The guy was tall, somewhere in his late twenties. He had brown-plaited hair, lots of freckles and a British accent. His face was terribly kind, and Akaashi felt terribly lonely looking at him. “No, I’m just the messenger. He’s over there.”

It was hard to see through the dust and the smoke and the grinding bodies.

But 2,500 yen sounded like a lot to Akaashi.

The other man was much older. He smelled like cigarettes and bad cologne, and the dim light in the bathroom stall cast him in washed out gray and bruise-yellow. He hit Akaashi when the boy’s teeth accidentally scraped against the weight in his mouth, but then he started groaning and thrusting his hips, and Keiji closed his eyes and thought about what 2,500 yen could buy (mostly food, and his stomach rolled over at the thought).

Then there was something awful and bitter in his throat and the man was slipping 4,500 yen into his pocket and telling him that was the best he’d ever had and that Akaashi was the prettiest boy in all of Tokyo.

He washed his mouth out with water from the sink, and went back to his booth. Oikawa was looking for him, frantic.

“Where were you?”

“I had to go to the bathroom.”

A hug, kisses on the top of his head.

“The drop-off went well. Even got some extra. We could go out for tempura, maybe. Or should we save up? Buy blankets? Or a space heater.”

On the way out, the man with the brown-plaited hair slipped a card into Akaashi’s pocket.

_Call me if you’re ever looking for some work._

The 4,500 yen turned into instant ramen, potatoes, rice, bandages, picked fish, tea and socks. He said the money came from selling some old metal he found in the dumpster outside. Oikawa laughed at the alien decals on the socks and took the lie like a champ, because when had Akaashi ever lied to him?

The next day, Akaashi snuck into the old drunk’s apartment just two doors down and used his phone to call the number on the card.

“The pretty boy,” The voice on the other side of the phone laughed. His accent turned all the syllables into clipped vowels. “Of course. I remember you.”

“My name is Akaashi Keiji. Please give me another job.”

“Another job,” There was a laugh. “How old are you, Keiji-kun?”

“I'm thirteen.”

“We can work with that. How close are you to a subway line?”

Eight years later, and Akaashi couldn’t say he knew much about the agency at all, which was of course, the whole purpose; the less he knew, the less he could report to the police. He knew the company was called Dice, and that his agent’s name was Eddie, but beyond that, it was mostly dark. They communicated almost exclusively over the phone, save for the few times they had met at the same unnamed, stained bar to negotiate his contract.

The phone calls were short. Eddie would ask if Akaashi was open, Akaashi would say yes. Then he’d get a name, an address, a time. A short explanation of what was expected of him, whether or not he was allowed to say ‘no’.

Akaashi knew he was paid well. It made sense. He was young. He was beautiful. He was experienced. He would let them do anything. Top of the blacklist, they called him. Reserved for the highest bidders. One of Dice’s most highly-requested. His body was not his own. It did not belong to him. But then again, he didn’t really want it anymore.

He gave in scars and rug burns and bruises and fingerprints on his throat. In sores and dark eyes and cramped muscles. Bitter bile in his throat when he looked in the mirror, a black hole in his chest that ached and ached and ached. In high moans and tears, in whimpers and soft cries. In absolute submission. He gave in the serendipity of being so ugly under beautiful skin.

He was paid in currencies. Money, yes, in tips and the envelopes twice a month. That was what he had began with, what they all began with. Not so well back then, because he was new and inexperienced. Better, now, but Akaashi learned there were things more valuable than 10,000 yen bills.

It was amazing how many hipster criminals wanted his name on their bedpost. How many wanted to leave their marks on his skin. How many rich faces and important figures would drop laws like feathers just for a few hours with him. He was in high demand. Because he was beautiful. Because he was young. Because he was experienced. Because he would let them do whatever they wanted.

So there were bargains. Payment plans. Schedules.

First there had been the loans on Tinto de Cuervos, with the business manager from Roppongi. Then again, with a partner of the same company, for Oikawa’s crazy midnight flower shop. Then there was the banker with Kenma’s student loans. Then it had been with the president of Tokyo University, for Terushima’s acceptance letter. Several times with the chief and deputy of police for Tanaka’s criminal record, for staying out of Saeko’s business. Then the medical bill for Yamaguchi’s single mother and her lung cancer. And then Kageyama’s legal papers. And then Hinata’s legal papers.

Because that’s what Akaashi did for unconditional love. He gave everything he had, and when it was his body that they wanted, he gave that, too.

(This is the pattern)

 

Akaashi walks slowly, with his hands in his pockets, and his shoulders hunched. He feels like one of those Halloween pumpkins, all screwed up on the inside, hollow and cavernous, and grinning like a wicked thing. His appointment had been hard, it had been all teeth and knuckles and twisting until he cried out. They’d left his lips cut and swollen, his thighs patterned like a harlequin rabbit.

He wears a heavy blue sweatshirt and keeps his hands tucked in the pockets. He is tired, and it is late, or maybe it is early, and he left his keys at Tinto de Cuervos. He’s been forgetting things a lot these days, but he hasn’t been sleeping either, so he ties them off as cause and effect and tries not to worry about it.

He feels sick. He feels hideous. He feels like a blight, like a fucking bitter, evil blight with nothing on the inside but a rotten carcass. He walks so as not to see himself reflected in the darkened windows. No green eyes or dark brows, no graceful cheekbones or ink hair. No haunted smile, no lifeless eyes. No sewn patches missing their stitches, holding him together with ductape and pins. No trembling fingers, no bleeding mouth. He doesn’t want to see the ugly creature hulked in his shoes.

_No sage will save you now._

He sneaks in through the back door with no lock, pads on silent, tired feet.

His keys are where he left them, on his desk, between a stack of trace paper and old coffee mugs. He takes them, reaches for the scarf hanging off of his lamp. It was a gift from Yachi, handsewn in warm red wool. Akaashi shakes off his hood, wraps the scarf tight around his neck. Feels it dig into his collar, soft as rabbit down.

He leaves the lights off, lets the streetlamps pool in from the windows, cast funny shadows on the pale ground. In the murk, his hands look like talons. He holds them out in front of his face, imagines the dirt in his fingernails and the crusted blood against the undersides of his palms. Notices every tiny, flickering scar, every knuckle and callus, every sluggish vein.

It is through the cracks in his fingers that he sees it, glowing in the antithesis light.

A white lily, long and tall and beautiful.

He picks it up with gentle fingers, and doesn’t think about staining it with blood and dirt.

_Hey, Akaashi!_

_It’s your secret admirer! I just petted a dog right before I wrote this. It was a great dog. I heard you have a rabbit and that it “is the epitome of all things evil” (Oikawa, circa ten minutes ago). That’s impressive._

_So this is a lily, which you probably know because it’s like everyone’s favorite flower ever. They’re super popular in mythology, and you might think “this kid doesn’t sound smart enough to know that” and you’d be right, except I did alotta research two hours ago on lilies so I could tell you these things. Anyway, all the different colors have different meanings, but I got you a white one, because it means purity. I mean, besides the fact that you’re unbelievably beautiful, Akaashi, you’re also really amazing and kind and smart and you just seem like you’re good. Ya know, like there’s this inherent um, goodness about you. There is a Korean word, Noon-chi, that doesn’t translate very well into Japanese, but it means to be good at taking care of others, and I feel like that’s you. You’re pure, you know! Good at heart._

_I visited your boy today. He’s a pretty angry guy, isn’t he? Filled with lots of rage. But he had a bad time, so I guess he deserves to be mad. Must be exhausting, though. He looked pretty surprised to see me. Kept asking if Oikawa was behind this, like my visiting was some kind of trap. Talk about trust issues!_

_Anyway, he said something kind of funny, and I didn’t understand what he was talking about at first. It was sort of off-handed, and he looked a little ashamed, like he didn’t mean to tell me, so I didn’t press him._

_He said that you were the loneliest person he knows._

_And at first I was like “what? Akaashi has so many friends! People love him!” And that’s true. You have lots of people who care about you a lot. All of those crows over there, plus most of us flowers, too. Because you’re kind. And funny. And smart. And you say exactly what people have to hear, even if it isn’t what they want to hear._

_But you know, I think I figured out why he said that._

_You give a lot, but you don’t let anyone give you anything back. You’re totally selfless. So you listen to them talk, and you give them a shoulder to cry on and stuff, but you don’t ever let them in. Right? And you probably think that’s for the best, because no one needs to know what you think. That’s the whole point- you don’t want to let anyone in because you don’t think you’re worth the time._

_I think that isn’t true._

_And I think Kageyama’s right. You’re really lonely, aren’t you, Akaashi?_

_Sorry. I’m rambling. Enjoy the flower and try to sleep well, okay?_

He doesn’t know exactly when the tears start or when he ends up on the floor, but it ends in a crash because he tips over a box of paint cans, and then he’s on the floor and everything is blurry and he’s sobbing so hard it hurts.

But he is tired. He is nauseous and he hurts. He is unclean and empty and alone and he is so very tired. He hates himself, he hates hates hates himself, hates his bruises and his hands and his ribcage. The way his hair can never lie down flat, the way his thighs stick together, the way his eyes are all fucked up so his eyeliner is never neat. Hates how little control he has over his fucking life, hates how its his own damn fault, hates that there is nothing he can call his own, not his art, not his head, not even his own fucking body.

He can’t breathe through his tears, and it makes everything fuzzy and numb, and his knuckles are white and his heart feels like it’s going to explode, and he just can’t _take it anymore._

_I think that isn’t true._

_You’re really lonely, aren’t you, Akaashi?_

And Akaashi can’t even argue with that, because where is he? Alone, in ripped stockings. Crying about a stupid flower, and a stupid boy with stupid hair who can’t seem to realize how much he’s fucking up Akaashi’s life.

 _Just look away_. Keiji thinks as he stares at the letter, tears staining his cheeks in a flood. _Why can’t you just look away?_

But the letter is blurry and the flower smells sweet and there is nothing he can do but tuck his legs to his chest and wait for his chest to stop rattling. He rubs his face, presses hard against his eyelids, and sees stars.

 

He dreams that night. Of Bokuto. Of Bokuto in his ugly pastel sweatshirt, taking Akaashi’s hands and kissing him. Of being wrapped in warm sunlight and feeling safe again.

Except only, they’re back in the booth, the dirty, stained booth from the unnamed bar, back with Bokuto’s fingers on his jaw, holding him like he’s precious, except _ow, that hurts, let go_.

Fingers tighten, smack his head against the wall, and then Bokuto’s eyes are murky brown and his hair is the color of live wire and he is tightening his hands around Akaashi’s throat and tightening, tightening, tightening and Akaashi is crying, there are sobs in his lungs, trapped in his throat, and he can’t get free, and there are horrible sounds, Bokuto shouting at him and hitting him. _You’re so ugly. So ugly. You lie and lie and lie, because you’re so lonely and pathetic and ugly. You want us to love you because you don’t deserve it. You’ll never deserve it, because you are broken, you are broken and ugly and no one will ever love-_

“-ashi! Wake up!” He’s jolted awake, and has a split second to register that there are hands on his shoulders. Terrified, he lashes out and feels his elbow connect with something soft. There’s a terrible crunching sound and a screech of indignant pain.

Less than a minute later, he’s standing in his tiny bathroom, supporting Oikawa’s head with one hand as blood spills in rivulets down his brother’s face. Oikawa, as expected, is losing his literal fucking shit.

“-to be a good brother, just checking on my stupid little kid because I’m _so nice like that_ and I get _assaulted_ , minding my own goddamn business, see if I ever do something nice for you again, it’s getting on my _sweater_ , do you know how much I paid for this? Aka-chan! You’re so mean to me!”

And so on.

“This is no one’s fault but yours,” Akaashi says, disinterestedly cutting his brother off. “You shouldn’t even be here. Why _are_ you here?”

“I was worried about you,” Oikawa sulks, wincing as Akaashi pats his nose with a bag of frozen naruto. “I called you like, ten times.”

Akaashi flushes with guilt. He turns his ringer off before appointments. In between losing his keys and finding the lily, he’d forgotten to switch it back on. “I was sleeping.”

“Apparently,” Oikawa reaches out, touches the crescent beneath Akaashi’s eye. “you were having a nightmare.”

“I’m fine, Oikawa. Don’t worry about me.”

But Serious!Oikawa is not so easily dissuaded. Blood dried in an ugly sweep across his face, he shoos Akaashi back a few centimeters to get a proper look at him. “You were screaming. And thrashing.”

Keiji sees the shadow of his dream, like an after-image, an imprint against the backs of his lids. “I was having a nightmare, Tooru. What did you expect?”

“You were calling out for Bokuto,” Oikawa fixes Akaashi with a hard stare, and there it is, that flash of deliberate cunning, the concerned determination that he remembers from Before, when a younger Oikawa with wild hair and a gap between his teeth had whispered _“Let’s run away from here”_ and Akaashi had listened. “You kept saying his name.”

There’s a nonchalance there that doesn’t match the scene, and Akaashi looks away. It has been a long time since Oikawa has done that, played off kindness as indifference.

“Let’s run away from here,” Keiji says, and watches his brother’s face crumple.

“Keiji.” The name saved just for moments like this. It is always Akaashi, Akaashi, Aka-chan, never _Keiji. Keiji_ is saved for serious times. “You were calling out for Bokuto.”

It’s vivid in that moment, the desperate _need_ , the urge, the uncontrollable want. It would knock Akaashi to his knees if he hadn’t been leaning against the counter. His breath stumbles out of his chest, and the realization hits him because he is falling all over himself for a boy he met two weeks ago, and there are bruises under his skin like skeletons and there are things that he has done that he won’t think about and his body doesn’t belong to him anymore than he wants it to, and maybe in a different life, he would be the captain of a volleyball team and have no idea what it felt like to bend his spine so far back that it turned to agony, or how to press down on his own throat so that he’d never remember a thing. Maybe there’s a different life where he and Bokuto had a chance, where Oikawa fell in love with Iwaizumi like he should and Kageyama didn’t sleep with the all lights on.

“It was just a dream, Oikawa,” The skeleton boy says, because it is easier to lie than to tell the truth and anyway, Akaashi can’t even tell the difference anymore, and there are flowers lined up on his windowsill like stars or martyrs or little green soldiers and all Keiji wants to do is sleep.

“Keiji, _please_ ,” His brother says with wet eyes, and that gets Keiji’s attention, because Oikawa Tooru doesn’t beg. “What’s wrong? You’re falling apart.”

 _Falling to pieces_. Shattering like a hundred million bits of Akaashi-shaped glass. He hopes he doesn’t cut his friends on the way down.

“I’m alright, Oikawa. Just tired.”

“It’s more than that!” His brother shouts, and suddenly, Akaashi’s eleven again, and Oikawa’s fourteen and the most holy person Keiji has ever met. “You can’t just tell me that, Akaashi, because it isn’t! You are falling apart, and everyone can see it! You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you’re losing weight. Everytime I see you, you’ve got some new ugly bruise and your eyes are so empty all the time.”

“Like martyrs?”

Oikawa slams his fist down on the counter. The toothbrushes rattle. “For _fuck’s_ sake, Akaashi! This isn’t a joke! I came to check on you because Kageyama said he was worried. Kageyama. Was worried. About _you_. The guy in the _hospital_ with a knife wound.”

"He’s worried about everything,” Akaashi says, and then feels so very guilty. But he’s done having this conversation. “I’m done having this conversation, Oikawa. I’m fine. Leave it alone.”

“Where are the bruises coming from, Akaashi?”

“I fall down a lot.”

“Bullshit,” Tooru spits, and that’s when Akaashi realizes. This is his brother _angry_. This is his brother scared because he isn’t taking care of himself. This is his brother terrified that he’s going to lose Keiji.

And Akaashi’s maybe about to say something clean when Tooru murmurs, “Is it Bokuto?”

Keiji’s vision stutters. He sees blank oblivion.

“What?”

“Bokuto. Is he… hurting you?” Oikawa touches Akaashi’s shoulder, feather-light, soft. “It’s okay, Keiji. You can tell me anything. I’m here for you.”

Golden eyes and strange hair. Ugly pastel sweatshirt. Warm, rough hands.

“You think _Koutarou_ is doing this to me?” Akaashi says, and there it is, that _Koutarou._ “You think he’s… what? Abusing me? Telling me not to eat? Putting things in my skin so I won’t sleep? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

Tooru flinches, steps back. “I just-”

The thing about Akaashi is, he doesn’t know how to be angry. He never learned. When he was younger, when it was Before, when he saw his parents trying to squeeze the very life out of each other, he learned that anger was bad. That it would eat him up and turn him into someone who screamed and hit and broke glass and locked his son in the closet. He learned to be so very, very afraid of anger that he bundled it all up tight in his chest, stuffed it way down, locked the drawer, threw away the key.

That drawer, that little place cordoned off with yellow police tape, has only exploded twice before in his life, for very different reasons. Once in defense of his brother, once to protect Kageyama. Backed into a corner, Akaashi’s reasoning snaps shut like a steel trap.

This time, he loses control for Bokuto.

Maybe because of Bokuto.

Is there a difference?

“Don’t say another word,” Akaashi can feel himself trembling. Not with fear, with rage. The small part of his mind not lost to the fury is numbly shocked. “I won’t take it from you, Oikawa. They can talk all they want, but I will not take this from you. I am not your pet. I am not your responsibility. I am not something that you can take care of whenever you feel like it. I am your brother, not your goddamn charity case.” His voice is rising, shaking. He clamps his hands into fists. “How dare you ask me? How dare you assume something like that. Do you know Bokuto at all? Do you know me at all? Do you think for one fucking second that I would let someone like him toss me around like an old ball of yarn?”

“No-”

“No, you didn’t think. You never think. You expect that I am some innocent child who needs your love and affection, like you’re some sunny prince come to my rescue. _I_ _can take care of myself_. I _have_ taken care of myself. You don’t get to give me shit about my health, Oikawa. Not a single fucking word. You talk to me like I’m a child, and yet you refuse to admit that you have a goddamn eating disorder. You say I’ve lost weight, but you haven’t gained a pound since you were sixteen. You don’t know what’s going on in my life. You don’t know what I’m hiding. You don’t fucking know because you never fucking ask. You waltz around and flirt with younger boys because you think you’re such a master of life just because you were an orphan for most of your childhood. Guess what, Oikawa? I was there, too. And let me tell you, that was a pretty fucked up way to live. I am doing my best because that is what I have learned to do. On my own. I don’t need you or your stupid questions asking me if your own employee has been assaulting me. Do you- do you know him at all? I would hope so since you're his boss, but the fact that the idea has even crossed your mind just confirms that no, you have no fucking clue. You never have any fucking clue. You’re twenty-four fucking years old and you can’t even take your head out of your ass long enough to realize that you’re still just that stupid, scared twelve-year-old who can’t grow up because he’s scared of the monsters lurking under the bed.”

“You call me your little brother, but some kind of fucking role model you are. Tell me, Oikawa, when’s the last time you had a full night’s sleep? How about the last time you ate a full meal? Maybe went a day without a cigarette? You can’t. Because your life is j _ust as fucked up as mine_. So don’t come to me with that stupid look in your eyes, because _I won’t take it from you._ ”

There’s silence. Akaashi is glaring at the mirror, hands clenched so tight the tendons in his fingers stand out like wires.

He feels it more than anything else, the soft breaking choke, no more than a whisper. A broken crumpled, horrible noise.

Oikawa shuts the bathroom door as he leaves.

Akaashi stares at the crack in the crappy white paint so long that everything goes blurry. When he looks up, looks at himself, he sees empty space. Two baleful green eyes and too much ragged, black hair. Sunken cheekbones and dark circles like bruises. He peels away the layers of his skin, past the clotted bruises and ugly, angry scars, to the empty skeleton, sees the shadows that bind his rib-cage, wreath through his hair like snakes, around his fingers like spiders. Sees the glint of a blade at the pale of his throat, the hulking things lying just behind his eyelids. Sees the stains, red and flaked and bloody, like fingerprints. Sees the way he bleeds ugly. Breathes ugly.

He hears his own voice in the back of his head, over and over and over again, repeats it under his breath like a mantra until he’s slid down to the floor into a ball and dry-heaved up a little bit of black blood.

_what have i become what have i done what have i done who am i what have i become who am i who am i who am i who am i who am i_

_Akaashi Keiji_

_the skeleton boy_

_help me_

Golden eyes, a soft smile.

_please, god, please somebody help me_

**Author's Note:**

> "Baby got your head down,  
> Baby got your head down to the ground,  
> Looking for a stranger,  
> Looking for a stranger to love."


End file.
